


round up the usual suspects

by unicyclehippo



Series: Blue Girls Have The Most Fun [45]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, second chances at a good not great love, she deserves interest she deserves attention, the familiarity that comes with understanding the worst moments of another person, the fondness that comes with knowing the worst & getting to see how they overcame it years later, this has everything i enjoy, two competing interests in beau
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:09:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25664920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicyclehippo/pseuds/unicyclehippo
Summary: prompt: "I still remember the way you taste." For Beau and Tori
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Tori, Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Series: Blue Girls Have The Most Fun [45]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1824289
Comments: 2
Kudos: 69





	round up the usual suspects

‘Of all the dive bars in all the towns, in all the world, and you walk into mine.' The all-too-familiar voice—smooth, warm, a hint of a rural drawl to it that she hasn’t quite managed to shake—speaks out into the bar, between the laughter and conversation, the burble of pouring drinks and pop of corks. It finds Beau right as she makes her way back to the table her friends had claimed. She stops. To be honest, she freezes, struck off-balance, too slow to catch the glass that drops from between her fingers.

Frozen, eyes on the far booth where her friends had set up, Beau can see Jester turn, scan the crowd for her, or maybe for Fjord, who had gone to play a few rounds at the card table. Her smile upon seeing Beau shifts into a confused frown; she calls a warning to Beau but Beau can’t do a damn thing about this, is caught tight, trapped between wanting and wary.

She waits to hear the glass shatter. Waits far too long for it, long enough for it to register that it was never going to come. Finally, Beau looks down to find an all-too familiar face looking right back up at her. A pointed chin. Mousy brown hair cut short around her ears. Dark eyes bright. Fingers curled around the shot glass, caught a few inches from the flagstone.

‘Thanks,’ Beau croaks.

‘Thanks?’ Tori repeats, laughs. ‘That’s the first thing you say after four years? Smooth.’

The ever-mocking lilt to her words rankles, like it always did. Sends a spark of spite, a line of crackling lightning down Beau’s spine, like always. Feels good. Feels _alive._ Like always.

Beau shakes out of her stupor when Tori breaks eye contact to stand, slow and smooth. Her shoulder brushes ever against Beau’s knee, up her side as she does so. Beau's knees twitch with the old impulse to buckle. She locks them in place.

Beau clears her throat. Nods to the glass in Tori's hand. ‘Can I have that?’

Tori lifts her brows. ‘Sure.’ She doesn’t hold it out though, turns it over in her hand with the kind of reverence someone would reserve for the crown fucking jewels. Beau reaches out—and misses as Tori pulls back. Beau snatches for it again, faster; _again_ Tori manages to keep it from her, closing her hand around it. There's something in her eyes, a challenge, a confrontation, and Beau knows she's realised Beau would do anything short of actually touching her to get it back.

Beau smirks, huffs out a laugh. With a shake of her head, Beau spins on her heel, heads back to the bar to collect another glass instead. 

The bar comes up to mid-chest on Beau. It's clean and clear and the bartender is far on the opposite end of it so Beau presses palm flat on the wood, leans over the bar to snag another glass. She can't find it in herself to be surprised that when stands up, it is up and against the lean line of Tori directly behind her. One hand comes around Beau, fingers graze her hip. Heat follows the trajectory of it like pain after a bolt. The shot glass _clicks_ down onto the bartop. 

'Hell of a greeting, Beau.' Despite the mockery, there's a hint of real hurt to the words. Just a hint. 'No hello?'

Beau ducks her chin. Thinks of the ocean, all blue all around her, and breathes out; it doesn't matter for shit that her mind is calm if her stomach swoops and flips when Tori sets that empty hand on her hip. The other lifts to graze over the back of her neck. Beau rolls out her shoulders - not to shrug Tori away, not yet. Tori pulls away anyway, which is new. For her.

'That's some ink you've got now. And scars.'

'Yeah. I've—been around.'

'Daddy finally get sick of you?'

That spark of spite, it ignites, roars through her; Beau whirls, changing their positions in a heartbeat. She's fought gorgons, come face-to-face with would-be gods—it is a matter of little effort to hook her leg just _so_ around Tori's and slam the other girl into the bar. She grips Tori by the front of her shirt and yanks her forward so they're nose to nose. So she can see the fury in her eyes, hear hissed words that wouldn't travel far in the noisy bar.

' _Don't_ you talk about him, don't you dare.' She gives Tori a harsh shake. 'I was gonna apologise to you, you know? God... Forgot how much of a bitch you are.'

Tori grins. Looks utterly comfortable as she is, though it has to be painful with her spine pressed up against the sharp angle of the countertop. As quickly as the fury had come, it's gone again. Tori moves, shifts somehow, and in an instant Beau's grapple feels far less like the start of a fight and more like an embrace. Probably has something to do with the way she loops her hand over Beau's. Something about the way she doesn't fight back, something about the way fondness and fire turns brown eyes to whiskey.

'You're faster than you used to be.'

'You're slower,' Beau snarks. Tori's grin tugs wider; Beau's eyes dip to her lips and her breath catches. Once upon a time, that smile had been her saving grace. It had been an effort to get thin, stern lips to turn up into a smile; it had been harder still to get the flash of white teeth, a little crooked. Beau doesn't have a perfect memory but those instances when she had managed it are burned into her brain, perfect victories that they'd been. Eyes bright, cheeks flushed with success. That smile turned on her and Beau had been hooked. 'Still the same, otherwise.'

'Still madly in love with me, then?' Tori asks, and Beau didn't know she could experience five-year-old shame so powerfully but it hits like a horse kick to the sternum, kicks the breath right out of her. Tori smirks. Beau's fingers go numb and slack; Tori brushes them off and presses the tips of her fingers to Beau's stomach. Nudges her back. 'I hope not. It's been a long time, Beau - hope you're not holding a candle after all that time.'

'I'm not.'

To her surprise, Tori smiles. Two in as many minutes. Beau hasn't had a single drink yet tonight and her head swims. Maybe it has something to do with Tori's hand still on her stomach, warm. Her thumb skirts over the hem of Beau's shirt, the plane of her abs.

'Good. Shit was fucked back then and—' She pulls a face. It takes a second for Beau to recognise the expression, she's never seen it on Tori's face. Embarrassed? 'You deserve better, or whatever.'

Beau blinks. 'Oh.'

'What?'

'No, nothing, I—expected you to—stab me, I guess.'

'Thought about it,' Tori laughs. 'Fifty-fifty chance of it. But...' Her eyes skim over Beau. Her thumb dips beneath Beau's skirt, too fast for Beau to do anything but tense, suck in a breath. Tori presses her lips together and her eyes dip; her fingers skim down to the jut of Beau's hip. ' _But_ ,' she says, 'it turns out you're super hot now and you _know_ how I hate wrecking art.' Beau nods, remembering how Tori had been the one to take the things beyond gold and silver, how she had eyed paintings and sculptures with keen attention. And as she remembers that, she remembers more - how very much she had wanted to be on the receiving end of that look. And now it's in front of her, intense as ever. She liked to think those times of her life were written in indelible ink on her memory but the truth is that at some point, the ink had faded and she had _forgotten_. Now, that look cuts through, and takes in every inch of her. 

Beau tenses, standing straighter, taller. 

'You've lost that lost puppy look,' Tori adds, eyeing Beau critically as soon as she manages to drag her eyes up from her muscles. 'And you look like you've been through it.' Her thumb slides over silver, the line of a scar from her middle to her hip. 

'You have no idea.' Beau hasn't heard this tone from herself in some time, voice low and inviting.

Tori has got to hear it too because her whiskey-dark eyes spark. ' _Love_ to hear about it some time. Maybe compare scars?' Her fingers trip up the sculpted muscles of Beau's arm to wrap around the muscle, pull her in sharply enough that Beau trip, has to brace against the bar with arms on either side of Tori, a mirror of how Tori had come up behind her. 

'I don't...'

'We were good together. Had some fun.' Beau huffs a laugh. 'Am I wrong?'

'No, no, we did. Wasn't just fun for me though.' Tilting her head to the side, Beau rubs at the bristle of her undercut. 'I think everything with you and your crew... Saved my life. _Gave_ me a life.'

'That's sad,' Tori tells her bluntly. Truthfully. 

Beau laughs again, a real laugh, loud enough to cut through the sound of the bar. This time when she smiles, she can feel it. Real smiles always feel awkward. Goofy. Nice, but goofy. 'Yeah. Fuck, yeah, I guess it is.'

Tori's gaze drops to her lips again. Slowly, ever so slowly, it lifts again.

'So. You got someone else?' Tori asks, striking Beau with the difference of this girl from the Tori she knew. The Tori Beau knew wouldn't have asked. Wouldn't have cared. The difference is staggering, enough to have Beau consider it - and the question - long enough that Tori starts to nod. 'Ah. It's like that, huh?'

'Shut up, you don't know.'

'No, no, I think I spoke too soon - I'm getting hints of lost puppy,'

'You're not getting hints of anything, don't be an ass,' Beau grumbles. 'No. There's—it's not like that. She's not interested.'

‘Hmm. Her loss.’ Beau’s stomach swoops again, far more pleasantly this time, at the way Tori _drags_ her eyes over her. No longer critical. Still appraising. Now _w_ _anting._ ‘You were always good. We were always good together.’

‘Yeah. We were. Well,' Beau hitches her shoulder, smirks. 'We were bad, actually.' She enjoys the way Tori laughs. 'But we were good at some things, that's for sure.’

‘I think about you sometimes. You think about me?’ She moves against Beau, a small adjustment, but enough to make it clear what she means.

Beau leans a little of her weight against Tori, both to stop her and because she’s finding it harder to resist the feeling of warmth, the feeling of being wanted.

‘Remember the way you taste. The way you sound,’

‘God, Tori, you can't just say shit like that,'

'I think I just did.' Warm lips find her neck, which is nice, and are followed by the sting of teeth, which is even better. Beau hisses, collapses more of her weight into the other woman.

‘Fuck!’

Tori laughs, high and bright. Her hands drag from Beau's hips to her spine and up. They're already close and Tori pulls her closer. 'Time and place,'

‘Beau?’

The sound of her name—and in Fjord’s voice—cuts through the haze of heat that has fogged Beau’s mind. She feels and hears Tori sigh, her breath warm against Beau's shoulder. Tori's arms slide down from Beau's back, releasing her. She draws back with a quick kiss to her cheek.

'Think about it,’ she says, and slips out of Beau's hold like she could have done it minutes ago, disappearing into the crowd.

Beau watches her go before turning toward Fjord.

He looks uncomfortable, but there is something hard in his eyes as he stares after Tori as well. ‘Found some company?’

‘She found me.’

‘Seemed cozy.’

‘…Old friend,’ Beau mutters. Tilts her head from side to side until she hears her neck crack. And if the sideways angle gives her one last glimpse of Tori as she steps out from the main room... ‘Any reason you felt you had to interrupt?’

Fjord's lips press flat, flesh going pale around the small tusks. ‘Didn’t want you to do something you’d regret.’

‘Why would I regret doing that?’ Beau smirks. 'Or should I say doing _her_?'

‘No, probably not.'

'Probably not.'

'But hey, you tell me. Certainly resisted her for long enough.’

‘You were watching me?' He doesn't answer, just watches her with narrowed eyes. 'God, Fjord, it’s called flirting.’

He grunts, apparently unconvinced. ‘Got the drinks? I’m headed back to our table.’

Beau glances back into the crowd one last time, even though Tori has well and truly disappeared. She grabs up the bottle of whiskey and the shot glasses she had gone for originally, and follows her friend back to the table.


End file.
